Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/3_600_e.lzh/3_648.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-01 | 6KB | 116 lines

\*Ver. 4. \\The voice of the Lord [is] powerful\\, &c.] Or
%with power% {a}; as thunder, in the effect of it, shows;
and so is the Gospel, when it comes, not in word only,
but is attended with the power of God to the conversion
and salvation of souls; it is then quick and powerful,
\\#Heb 4:12\\; and the word of Christ personal,
when here on earth, was with power, \\#Lu 4:32\\;
\*\\the voice of the Lord [is] full of majesty\\; Christ, in his
state of humiliation, spake and taught as one having
authority; and now, in the ministration of his Gospel
by his servants, he goes forth with glory and majesty,
\\#Ps 45:3,4\\.

\*Ver. 5. \\The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars\\,
&c.] Such an effect thunder has upon the tallest,
strongest, and largest trees, as to break them into shivers;
\*\\yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon\\;
a mountain in the north part of the land of Judea, so
called from its whiteness, both by reason of the snow
with which some part of it is covered in summer, as
Tacitus observes {b}; and partly from the colour of the
earth that has no snow on it, which looks as white as
if it was covered with white tiles, as Maundrell {c} says;
and where the goodliest cedars grow; and to which
may be compared proud, haughty, lofty, and stout-hearted
sinners, who are broken, brought down, and
laid low, by the voice of Christ in his Gospel, his power
attending it. The Targum renders it, %the Word of the Lord%.

\*Ver. 6. \\He maketh them also to skip like a calf\\, &c.]
That is, the cedars, the branches being broken off, or
they torn up by the roots, and tossed about by the
wind; which motion is compared to that of a calf that
leaps and skips about;
\*\\Lebanon and Sirion, like a young
unicorn\\; that is, these mountains move and skip about
through the force of thunder, and the violence of an
earthquake attending it; so historians report that
mountains have moved from place to place, and they
have met and dashed against one another {d}. Sirion
was a mountain in Judea near to Lebanon, and is the
same with Hermon; which was called by the Sidonians
Sirion, and by the Amorites Shenir, \\#De 3:9\\.
This may regard the inward motions of the mind, produced
by the Gospel of Christ under a divine influence;
see \\#Isa 35:6 40:4-8\\.

\*Ver. 7. \\The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of
fire\\.] Or %cutteth with flames of fire% {e}; that is, the
thunder breaks through the clouds with flames of fire, or
lightning, as that is sometimes called, \\#Ps 105:32\\; and
with which it cleaves asunder trees and masts of ships,
cuts and hews them down, and divides them into a
thousand shivers. Some refer this, in the figurative
and mystical sense, to the giving of the law on Mount
Sinai {f}, on which the Lord descended in fire, and from
his right hand went a fiery law; but rat her this may
be applied to the cloven or divided tongues of fire
which sat upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost,
as an emblem of the extraordinary gifts of the spirit
bestowed on them; though it seems best of all, as before,
to understand this of the voice of Christ in the
Gospel, which cuts and hews down all the goodliness
of men, and lays them to the ground, \\#Ho 6:5\\; and is
of a dividing nature, and lays open all the secrets of
the heart, \\#Heb 4:12\\; and, through the corrupt ion or
human nature, is the occasion of dividing one friend
from another, \\#Lu 12:51,52\\; and like flames of fire
it has both light and heat in it; it is the means of enlightening
men's eyes to see their sad estate, and their
need of Christ, and salvation by him; and of warming
their souls with its refreshing truths and promises, and
of inflaming their love to God and Christ, and of setting
their affections on things above, and of causing their
hearts to burn within them.

\*Ver. 8. \\The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness\\,
&c.] The ground of it, the trees in it, and the beasts
that harbour there; and causes them to be in pain, and
to bring forth their young, as the {g} word signifies, and
as it is rendered in \\#Ps 29:9\\; all which effects
thunder produces, and may mystically signify the
preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles, and the
consequence of it. The Gentile world may be compared
to a wilderness, and is called the wilderness of
the people, \\#Eze 20:35\\; the inhabitants of it being
ignorant, barren, and unfruitful; and the conversion
of them is expressed by turning a wilderness into a
fruitful land, \\#Isa 35:1,2,6,7 41:18,19\\; and
the Gospel being sent thither has been the means of
shaking the minds of many with strong and saving
convictions; which made them tremble and cry out,
what shall we do to be saved?
\*\\the Lord shaketh the
wilderness of Kadesh\\; which was the terrible wilderness
that the children of Israel passed through to Canaan's
land; the same with the wilderness of Zin,
\\#Nu 33:36\\; and was called Kadesh from the
city of that name, on the borders of Edom, \\#Nu 20:1,16\\;
the Targum paraphrases it,
\*"The word of the
"Lord shaketh the wilderness of Rekam;"\*
\*in the Targum in the king's Bible it is,
\*"makes the serpents
"in the wilderness of Rekam to tremble;"\*
\*but that thunder frightens them, I have not met with in any writer.

{a} \^xkb\^ %in potentia%, Pagninus, Montanus; %cum potentia%, Cocceius,
Michaelis; %with able power%, Ainsworth.
{b} Hist. l. 5. c. 6.
{c} Travels, p. 176.
{d} Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 83. Joseph. Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11.
{e} \^va twbhl bux\^ %caedit cum flammis ignis%, Cocceius, Gejerus.
{f} Jarchi in loc.
{g} \^lyxy\^ %parturire faciet%, Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis;
%dolore parturientis afflicit%, Piscator.